Caroline Ashleigh Appraisers & Auctioneers

  Photo Credit: MoMA Back in 1962 when Andy Warhol featured the Campbell brand in his artwork, Campbell had some initial concern about his use of their trademark, but ended up commissioning a piece from Warhol. Today, the company has a soup can painting prominently hanging in their New Jersey headquarters In1966, Campbell invited consumers to send in soup can labels, plus one dollar, in exchange for a Warhol designed dress made of paper. The rarity of that iconic 60's dress today is partly due to the fact that few have survived. The Campbell 'Souper' dress, which was featured on Antiques Roadshow several years ago by appraiser Caroline Ashleigh, is selling for approximately $20,000 in today's market

  Antiques Roadshow Has a Renegade Message - " The Surprising Politics of Antiques Roadshow " by Stephen Lurie The show is about finding out how much your possessions are worth. But it has stayed popular because it values knowledge over money Photo: Courtesy Antiques Roadshow

In this video clip, the owner of the purse approaches Caroline Ashleigh for advice on the value of the item. He describes that he bought it some 10 or 15 years ago for his wife, who liked the purse and is a Chaplin fan. Since that time, the purse had lain around their home and had not been used. Caroline Ashleigh asks the man how much he paid for it, to which he answers approximately $25. Following his disclosure, Caroline Ashleigh describes the history of the item, which was part of a limited edition set of purses, each depicting a famous celebrity. Furthermore, the purses were only available for a short time. Subsequently, Caroline Ashleigh asks the man to guess what the purse is worth today. He provides an estimate of $125. Caroline Ashleigh appraises the item conservatively at over $600.

In the following clip, Caroline Ashleigh appraises a James Dean yearbook: The yearbook is from James Dean's junior year in high school, and the owner brings the item to Caroline Ashleigh with obvious enthusiasm. Immediately, Ashleigh and the woman find the picture of James Dean in the yearbook, which is accompanied by the nickname, "Rack." More importantly, however, at the back of the book is a signature page, where James Dean's signature appears, along with his nickname. Caroline Ashleigh explains that the signatures of celebrities such as Dean can fetch between $1,500 to $2,000 on their own. Its appearance in the yearbook greatly increases the value. Had the yearbook been of his senior year, Caroline Ashleigh explains, it would have been worth over $4,000. However, she still appraises the item between $3,000 and $3,500. More information on Caroline Ashleigh and additional video clips from her television appearances can be found at www.apprai...

Caroline Ashleigh Featured in Women2Women Magazine Read the PDF Version Cover Story in Women 2 Women Caroline Ashleigh, Appraiser and Auctioneer, Author and HGTV & Antiques Roadshow expert appraiser, talks about her passion, living in the Sweet Spot in her profession, and building her business into one of the premier art appraisal and auction companies in the country. Excerpts from the article: "When you find your true vocation in life, you find your sweet spot. Step into that rhythm and enthusiasm flows, and gives you a higher sense of purpose in that which you do" "Each of us has unique skills to share and we are happiest and most energized when we share them"

Everyday invaluable antiquities are looted all over the world and then sold on the black market robbing us of our cultural heritage. There is a 7.8 billion dollar industry in stolen and looted antiquities which represents a rape of history in the loss of archeological content, destruction of monuments and destruction of artifacts. The trade in illicit antiquities thrives in secrecy. Sadly, black market trade in antiquities destroys our most precious, non-renewable resource - the intact evidence of our undiscovered past. Each looted artifact, whether dug-up from the American Southwest, from a Mesopotamian temple site, or from a burial site in China, Afghanistan, or Peru, is like a page torn from a book. Each missing page represents a permanent hole in our understanding of our collective history. This global problem calls for global answers. First, we must raise public awareness. To learn more about what is being accomplished through lectures and educational programs...

I've recently read that high-profile celebrity collectors Steve Martin, Robert De Niro, and Steven Spielberg have been victims of art fraud. These are serious collectors of art that do their due diligence, yet have still been "had" by sophisticated art fraud schemes. A colleague of mine, Robert Wittman, founder of the FBI Art Crime Team, has likened it to the wild, wild west; the art world is unregulated and art fraud runs rampant. During his 20-year FBI career, Wittman has rescued stolen Rembrandts, Rodins, and Rockwells, and investigated several major art scams - most notable, the Antiques Roadshow television scandal hatched by con artist Russell Pritchard III. Wittman recounts the full Antiques Roadshow case in a chapter of his New York Times best-selling memoir Priceless , which came out in paperback this week. For more information, read the full post at the Caroline Ashleigh Auction blog .

After 50 years of collecting toy trains, Jerry Greene has amassed a collection of over 40,000 pieces, worth tens of millions of dollars, and has a ticket to ride…. One look at this collection would convince anyone that there is such a thing as a collecting gene, and that Jerry Green inherited it. When Green decided to sell the collection, at Sotheby’s in New York, it took his entire family three weeks to unpack and arrange what was on display at the auctioneers. David Redden, vice chairman of Sotheby's, believes it's the biggest train collection in the world. Green admits he’s an “obsessive collector.” He says he has more than 1,700 locomotives and cars, 700 stations, and thousands of accessories. "In cataloguing the collection, I came up with 27,000 different items," he said. Green decided to sell the collection because he ran out of good pieces to buy. So how much is it worth? Here's a hint . . . Green described one stati...

Laura Bell of Roscommon, Michigan used lint from her dryer to make a 14' by 4' reproduction of Leonardo da Vinci's Last Supper. The AP reports: Bell says she needed about 800 hours to do enough laundry to get the lint, and 200 hours to recreate the mural. She bought towels of the colors she wanted and laundered them separately to get the right shades of lint. The people at Ripley's Believe It Or Not! were so impressed they bought it for their collection. According to their press release, Bell started her masterpiece in 2009 and it took some experimenting to get it just right: Bell says she spent seven months saving the lint from her own dryer, but the problem was it was usually the same color. She tried laundromat lint, but it was always shades of gray and full of dog hair. She took on this project to enter into a Grand Rapids art contest called Art Prize. The lure of the grand prize — $250,000 — kept her ...